Never Mind The Gap: A Survey Has Shown Women Face A Gender Cap

On average women in accounting and finance roles earn 32.6 per cent less than men. However a survey found it isn’t pay disparity that’s causing the gap but rather the lack of women making it to the top jobs resulting in a gender cap.

An Auckland company Consult Recruitment, surveyed nearly 9,000 kiwis who had roles in data entry to Chief Financial Officer. They found that the mean male salary was 32.6 per cent ahead of the mean female salary.

If you dig a little deeper it turns out women aren’t being paid less than their male peers for the same work. In fact, it found females earn more than males in half the roles the survey analysed. Across the majority of roles the pay difference between genders is less than 5 per cent. It’s likely down to other factors rather than just gender.

So why do men earn 32.6 percent more than women?

This is because the top roles are where gender balance and pay difference is the largest. 85 per cent of Chief Financial Officers are men. They were paid 17 per cent more than their female counterparts.

The large difference here props up the male average. Angela Cameron, Managing Director at Consult Recruitment said “A lot of people would look at the 32.6% figure and assume that men earn 32.6% more than women across the board, but this simply isn’t true. The majority of women we surveyed earn similar amounts to their male peers and in many cases they earn more.”

Angela said the lack of women in top jobs is a concern but there are some encouraging signs coming through.

“What the survey shows though is that the most effective way to reduce the overall pay gap is to get more women into senior roles and make sure they’re paid the same as their male equivalents.”

These findings have come from a survey of nearly 9,000 accounting and finance professionals. Across Auckland in the past two years.

So to change the statistics we need to work on the gender cap rather than the gender gap.

Image Credits: pexels

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